'Truth spoken without moderation reverses itself'
This blog is a source for intellectual exploration. It includes a list of alternative resources and a source of free books. The placement of an article does not imply that I agree with it, merely that I found it thought-provoking. There are also poems and book reviews. Texts written by me are labelled. Readers are free to re-post anything they like.

Monday, February 20, 2017

Ulson Gunnar - How a Real War on Terrorism Would Look and Why the US Isn’t Fighting One

February 19, 2017
"Information Clearing
House" - Since 2001, when then US President George Bush announced
his “War on Terror,” presidents and politicians both in the United States and
among America’s allies, have repeated this phrase and have done their utmost to
convince the public that indeed, the West was fighting a “War on Terror.”

Yet there is something
disturbingly ambiguous about what exactly the “War on Terror” consists of, who
it’s being waged against and how it could ever possibly be brought to a
successful conclusion.

It is also often
referred to as the “Long War,” and for good reason. America’s ongoing
occupation of Afghanistan is the longest armed conflict in US history.
Additionally, US troops still find themselves in Iraq, some 14 years after the
initial invasion and occupation of the state in 2003.

Because of the
ambiguous nature of the “War on Terror,” politicians have been given much room
to maneuver their rhetoric, explaining why more wars must be waged, more
liberties curtailed at home and more wealth and power channeled into fewer and
fewer hands.

What’s Really
Behind Terrorism?

The fanatics, weapons,
supplies, vehicles and finances that grease the wheels of global terror do not
merely spring forth from the pages of the Qu’ran, as bigots across the West
insist. Just like any national
army, the army raised and wielded in the name of terrorism has several basic
components. Examining these components reveals a very uncomfortable but
somewhat poorly hidden truth.

In reality, fanatics
must be indoctrinated. And they are, in Saudi-funded madras and mosque networks
wrapping around the globe. In the United States and across Europe, these
madrases and mosques often serve as both indoctrination centers and recruiting
stations. They operate as such with the explicit knowledge, even cooperation of
US and European security and intelligence agencies.

One such center can be
found in Denmark at Grimhøjvej Mosque in Aarhus which openly serves as a
recruiting station for militants meant to fight abroad in US-European backed
wars in Libya, Syria, Iraq and Yemen. The government of Denmark openly
collaborates with the mosque to integrate these individuals back into Danish
society when they return.

The mosque in Aarhus
is hardly an isolated example. Such mosques backed and protected by
US-European-Saudi money and political influence dot the globe, feeding recruits
into a global mercenary army carrying out proxy war and staging terrorist
attacks whenever and wherever politically convenient. Both Wikileaks and
even the US’ own Defense Intelligence Agency has released documents exposing
the role both the West and Gulf states such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar have
played in the arming and funding of actual militants once they reach the
battlefield.

Additionally,
militants that have been indoctrinated, trained, armed, funded and
battle-hardened by Western and Gulf sponsorship, return back to their
respective nations where they are then cultivated for domestic operations.
Terror attacks like those in Paris and Brussels, Berlin and elsewhere are carried out almost
exclusively by militants US-European security and intelligence agencies have
known about and even arrested but inexplicably released, allowing them to carry
out their attacks.

What a Real War on
Terrorism Requires

It is often said that
states like Russia, Syria and Iran exist as natural allies to the United States
and Europe in the fight against terrorism. And that would be true if not for
the fact that said terrorism is actually a deliberate product of US-European
foreign policy. Were the West to truly wage a war on terrorism, it would
already be deeply cooperating with these nations on the front line
against groups like Al Qaeda and the self-proclaimed Islamic State.

However, terrorism is
waged as a means of fighting the West’s proxy wars abroad, and to create
divisive, paralyzing hatred, fear and hysteria at home. Travel bans are
created to intentionally stoke controversy and distract the public from the
aforementioned reality driving terrorism. As is evident in virtually all
terror attacks carried out across the West, suspects are already know to
security and intelligence agencies beforehand. These agencies simply need to
stop them. Instead, they allow the attacks to take place, granting their
respective governments political capital to channel more power into centralized
hands.

While the US and
Europe use terrorism as a function of foreign policy, they could not do it
without their intermediaries in the Persian Gulf. Without the Saudis and
Qataris serving as “handlers” for the West’s terrorist legions, it is unlikely
such legions could be raised to begin with. Targeting, rather than
embracing, even protecting these state sponsors of all aspects of terrorism,
from indoctrination and recruitment, to training, arming and financing
terrorism on the battlefield, would be another essential step in a real “War on
Terror.”

Yet from President
Bush to President Obama and now during the administration of US President
Donald Trump, the US and its European allies continue to coddle the regimes in
Riyadh and Doha, rather than taking any measures whatsoever to disrupt this terror
pipeline. While the US remains
in Afghanistan allegedly to “fight terrorism,” it refuses to take even the most
basic steps to dismantle the ideological, political and financial structures in
the Persian Gulf fueling that terrorism.

A final means of combating
and defeating “terrorism” would be to educate the public of just how small a
minority is actually involved in it, isolating those groups exploiting and
perverting ideologies from the vast majority who practice these ideologies
constructively.

Instead, US and
European demagogues work ceaselessly to lump all of Islam into the “terror”
basket, creating tension and hostility on both sides of an essentially
manufactured strategy of tension. Instead of draining emotional and political
resources from those seeking to recruit disillusioned individuals, the West is
ensuring them an endless supply.

A real “War on Terror”
is clearly not being waged. Nothing presented by President Trump before or
after his campaign victory in 2016 indicates a real war is about to be waged.
In fact, much of what has been done thus far, has simply been the placing of
additional bricks on a very predictable path toward the infinite horizon of
this “Long War.”